Questions students actually ask
Answers describing how this site really works, including the parts where the honest answer is that a prediction cannot tell you something.
Using the predictor
- How does the MHT-CET college predictor work?
- You enter your MHT-CET percentile or your CAP merit rank, your category, and the branches you would accept. Your figure is compared against the closing cutoff of every matching course in the official CAP data, and each course is sorted into good chance, possible or reach depending on how far ahead of or behind that closing figure you are. There is no model and no guesswork — it is a comparison against what actually happened last time.
- Should I enter my percentile or my merit rank?
- Either works, and the result is equally valid. Percentile is what most students know first, so it is the usual choice. Use merit rank if you have your CAP merit number, because it is the figure the counselling process itself runs on. Do not convert one into the other yourself; the two are never mixed, and a converted figure would be a guess.
- Does my category affect the prediction?
- Yes, and it usually changes the result more than anything else. Cutoffs are published separately for every seat type — your category, your gender, and whether the seat is reserved for a defence, PWD, TFWS, orphan or minority candidate. Selecting the wrong category compares you against a completely different set of numbers, so the result would be meaningless.
- What does Home University mean, and does it matter?
- Maharashtra reserves a share of seats at each institute for candidates from the university region that institute belongs to. Those Home University seats usually close at a lower cutoff than the same course at State Level, so a student from the right region can get into a course that is out of reach for the same score from elsewhere. The predictor takes this into account when you tell it your scope.
- Can I choose more than one branch?
- Yes. Branches are offered as groups rather than as a list of a hundred and twelve course names, and you can pick any combination. Selecting nothing searches everything, which is usually the right first move — students who filter hard on the first attempt often filter out a college they would have happily taken.
Reading the result
- What do good chance, possible and reach mean?
- Good chance means you finished comfortably ahead of the last candidate admitted to that course last year. Possible means you are near that line and it could go either way. Reach means you were behind it, but the course is worth listing as an ambitious option because cutoffs move. They are descriptions of distance from a past cutoff, not probabilities.
- Are the predictions guaranteed?
- No, and nobody can honestly offer that. A prediction compares your score with a previous year. Cutoffs shift every year with seat intake, paper difficulty and how many students apply where. Actual allotment also depends on your preference order, eligibility, documents and seat availability, none of which this site can see. Treat the result as a shortlist to research, not as an admission.
- A college I want is showing as reach. Should I still put it on my form?
- Usually yes. Ranking a course lower on your preference list costs you nothing if you do not get it, because CAP allots the highest preference it can reach. Leaving a college off the form is the only way to guarantee you will not be allotted it. Use the bands to decide the order of your preferences, not to shorten the list.
- Why does the same college appear several times in my results?
- Cutoffs are published per course, per seat type and per round, not per college. A college offering eight branches across three CAP rounds can therefore produce many rows, each one a genuinely different route in with a different closing figure. Filtering by round or by branch group narrows it down.
The data
- Where does CollegeHelper get its cutoff data?
- From the official CAP cutoff documents published by the State Common Entrance Test Cell, Government of Maharashtra, read directly from those PDFs. The documents are named on the data and method page so you can download them and check any figure against the original.
- Which year's cutoff data is used?
- The 2026-27 CAP cutoffs, covering Rounds I, II and III — 90,289 cutoff records across 386 institutes. The dataset in use was imported on 31 August 2026. When the CET Cell publishes a new season, the documents are re-read and the year shown on the site changes with them.
- What is CAP, and what is the difference between Round I, II and III?
- CAP is the Centralised Admission Process — the state-run counselling that allots engineering seats in Maharashtra. It runs in rounds. Round I allots against the full set of seats and generally closes at the highest cutoffs. Round II reallocates the seats left over after Round I admissions and cancellations, so cutoffs often fall. Round III works on whatever remains and is where cutoffs are typically lowest and most volatile. The predictor shows all three so you can see which round a course actually opened up in.
- What is the difference between a closing rank and a closing percentile?
- They describe the same candidate from two directions. The closing percentile is the score of the last admitted candidate expressed as the percentage of candidates at or below them, so higher is better. The closing rank is that same candidate’s merit number, so lower is better. Both are published officially, and this site never calculates one from the other.
- Are fees, placements and rankings shown?
- Only where a person has checked them against a primary source. The CAP documents contain cutoffs and nothing else, so fee, placement and hostel information is added college by college, and a page that does not have it says so instead of filling the space with an estimate. No ratings, reviews or rankings are published, because none have been collected.
- I found a cutoff that does not match the official PDF. What should I do?
- Report it. Send the institute code, the course, the CAP round and the seat type, and it will be checked against the source document and corrected. Contact details are on the about page.
Access and the site
- Is CollegeHelper official, or connected to the CET Cell?
- No. CollegeHelper.xyz is an independent site. It is not affiliated with MHT-CET, the State CET Cell, JoSAA, NTA or any college. It reads the documents those bodies publish; it has no role in admissions and cannot influence an allotment.
- Do I have to pay to use the predictor?
- It depends on the mode the site is in, which is shown before you enter anything and again before any payment screen. When access is charged for, it is a single payment shown in rupees up front, with no subscription and no automatic renewal. The price and the mode are always displayed before you commit to anything.
- I paid but lost access. How do I get back in?
- Use the restore access page with the same email address and phone number you entered at payment, and access is returned to that browser. If that does not work, contact us with the payment details and it will be sorted out by hand.
- What data does the site collect about me?
- If you pay, your name, email and phone number, because a purchase has to be attached to somebody. Otherwise, an anonymous browser identifier, the inputs you gave the predictor and how many results came back. There is no third-party advertising or tracking script, and referrers are stored as a domain only. The privacy policy sets this out in full.